He talked about Nissan Watch, unveiled at the Frankfurt Auto Show last month. The smartwatch, using a Bluetooth LE connection, gathers telemetry data from a car so that it can show the driver the car's efficiency information, such as fuel consumption, while also tracking performance. The Nissan Watch also monitors certain parameters of driver health, like heart rate in a traffic jam.

Nissan Watch links a car and a driver.

OK, mildly interesting. But hardly the mass market product that will prompt every carmaker to embrace Bluetooth LE, I thought. However, Ramsthaler mentioned offhand that Bluetooth LE would be useful as a smart car key.

Now I'm interested.

As I recall, NXP, armed with the lion's share in the smart car key market, had been thinking along these lines. NXP came up with a single-chip solution for multi-function car keys using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. The idea is for keys to connect to external NFC-compliant devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, and laptops. Announcing the product, called KEyLink Lite, NXP talked about potential "smart" key applications including car finder, route planner, and car status/service data management.

So, now that Broadcom is coming to the automotive market with Bluetooth LE chips, will we be seeing an NFC vs. Bluetooth LE battle brewing in the smart car key market?

Or better yet, will there be a day when we can do away with our car keys and flip open a car door simply by waving the phone?

Not so fast.

Talking to several executives at the European Microelectronics Summit, I quickly realized that using a smartphone to enter a car is actually not a smart idea.

Ian Riches, director of global automotive practice at Strategy Analytics, agreed that unlocking a car with a smartphone is possible. But he cautioned: "The problem is that a lot of people go inside a car to charge their smartphones. What if your smartphone already ran out of battery? You can't even open your car door!"

I love that. I think all these things need to be worked out before this idea of smartphone as a car key becomes a reality. Most likely, carmakers will give us both a regular physical car key AND smartphone car key app. (But then, we must ask, why bother developing a smart car key app?)

Using my SmartPhone for car access sounds great ... until I think of the unintended consequences:

How will I lend you my car while I'm away on a business trip if I still want my SmartPhone?

If I can clone the key with an expiration date for your SmartPhone, how will I entend that loan when I get delayed returning home?

What if you don't have a compatible SmartPhone to accept the key?

What happens when I drop my SmartPhone in a puddle on a wilderness trip?

What happens when my charger cord breaks or gets forgotten? Will I lose access to my car on a long trip - moments after my GPS goes dead so I'm both lost and locked out of my car without a phone to call for help?

It could very useful in car rentals (they will program your phone and have an electronic record of all car entries available)...or other industrial applications where multiple drivers use cars so their identity and times of use are precisely known

I agree. I guess this dual strategy -- let those who think it's hip to have a smartphone car key have it, but always keep a separate physical car key -- is probably the way it will unfold. After all, who wouldn't want to emulate what James Bond did 16 years ago?

Damn, it sounds like Tesla owners have already thought about everything it can be done about this! Seriously, though, an app like checking the vehicle's location is actually can be useful if you live in Brooklyn or Manhattan, and forgot to ask your husband where he moved his car last (as one needs to change the side of the street often)

Many Tesla Model S owners consider the Tesla app as being one of the best things of the Tesla ownership experience. Some have taken it even further and developed their own enhanced app called VisibleTesla. With these apps one can open and close doors, check the vehicles location(quite handy if someone manages to steal it), schedule charging and remotely adjust cabin temperature which many consider the most useful. The only thing it would seem they are missing is being able to control an e-chauffeur which I understand Elon has promised to deliver in a few years.